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PHYSICAL REVIEW E 67, 066501 共2003兲

Properties of the ultrashort gain length, self-amplified spontaneous emission free-electron laser
in the linear regime and saturation
A. Murokh,1 R. Agustsson,1 M. Babzien,2 I. Ben-Zvi,2 L. Bertolini,3 K. van Bibber,3 R. Carr,4 M. Cornacchia,4 P. Frigola,1
J. Hill,3 E. Johnson,2 L. Klaisner,4 G. Le Sage,3 M. Libkind,3 R. Malone,2 H-D. Nuhn,4 C. Pellegrini,1 S. Reiche,1
G. Rakowsky,2 J. Rosenzweig,1 R. Ruland,4 J. Skaritka,2 A. Toor,3 A. Tremaine,3 X. Wang,2 and V. Yakimenko2
1
UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of California at Los Angeles, 405 Hilgard Avenue,
Los Angeles, California 90095-1547, USA
2
Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York 11973, USA
3
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, California 94551, USA
4
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, Stanford, California 94309, USA
共Received 13 December 2001; published 4 June 2003兲
VISA 共Visible to Infrared SASE Amplifier兲 is a high-gain self-amplified spontaneous emission 共SASE兲
free-electron laser 共FEL兲, which achieved saturation at 840 nm within a single-pass 4-m undulator. The
experiment was performed at the Accelerator Test Facility at BNL, using a high brightness 70-MeV electron
beam. A gain length shorter than 18 cm has been obtained, yielding a total gain of 2⫻108 at saturation. The
FEL performance, including the spectral, angular, and statistical properties of SASE radiation, has been char-
acterized for different electron beam conditions. Results are compared to the three-dimensional SASE FEL
theory and start-to-end numerical simulations of the entire injector, transport, and FEL systems. An agreement
between simulations and experimental results has been obtained at an unprecedented level of detail.

DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.67.066501 PACS number共s兲: 41.60.Cr, 41.60.Ap, 41.85.Ja

I. INTRODUCTION beam microbunching measurements and nonlinear harmonics


generation are reported elsewhere 关17,18兴.
There is a great interest in the scientific community to-
wards development of the intense, short pulse, x-ray sources II. EXPERIMENTAL SETUP
to probe the dynamics of chemical and biological processes
The general layout of the experiment is shown in Fig. 1.
at the molecular and atomic levels. In one promising scheme,
The ATF 1.6-cell photocathode S-band gun generated a high
it was suggested 关1兴 to build an unseeded, single-pass, self-
brightness electron bunch, which was accelerated in two con-
amplified spontaneous emission free-electron laser 共SASE-
secutive SLAC-type linac structures to the VISA operating
FEL兲 based on the high brightness ultrarelativistic electron energy of around 71 MeV 关19兴. A 20° double-bend transport
beam presently available at SLAC 关2兴 and in the future at section served to direct the beam into Beamline III of the
TESLA 关3兴. The concept of the SASE-FEL was introduced in ATF experimental hall, where the VISA undulator was lo-
the early 1980s 关4,5兴, and in the following years the one- cated.
dimensional 共1D兲 theory has been extended to include three- The 4-m-long in-vacuum VISA undulator 关20兴 was built
dimensional 共3D兲 effects 关6,7兴, and to describe temporal and at SLAC as a Halbach array of 220 periods, each 1.8-cm
statistical properties of the SASE radiation 关8兴. long. The pole magnets provided an on-axis peak field of
In recent years, with the advancement of the photoinjector approximately 0.75 T. In addition, the undulator was
technology 关9兴, a series of successful experiments demon- equipped with a periodic quadrupole lattice, which generated
strated high gain SASE operation, in the IR 关10,11兴, visible a strong focusing gradient throughout the length of the un-
关12兴, and ultraviolet 关13兴 spectral ranges. Finally, a SASE-
FEL saturation has been obtained 关14兴 at 540 nm. The VISA
共Visible to Infrared SASE Amplifier兲 experiment reported
here was designed to further investigate the physical proper-
ties of the SASE-FEL relevant to the future LCLS operation.
In particular, the efficiency limits of the SASE process were
studied experimentally through optimization 关15兴 of the un-
dulator parameters for the best available low emittance pho-
toinjector beam produced at the Accelerator Test Facility
共ATF兲 关16兴. VISA achieved saturation at 840 nm within a
4-m-long undulator with the SASE power gain length of 17.9
cm—more than a factor of 3 shorter than what had been FIG. 1. Experimental layout of the ATF Beamline III: gun and
previously achieved in this spectral range. The focus of this linac area 共a兲; 20° double-bend dispersive section 共b兲; and VISA
manuscript is on the measured FEL performance at the fun- experimental area 共c兲, including the undulator and radiation diag-
damental wavelength; while other results such as electron nostics.

1063-651X/2003/67共6兲/066501共5兲/$20.00 67 066501-1 ©2003 The American Physical Society


MUROKH et al. PHYSICAL REVIEW E 67, 066501 共2003兲

dulator, forcing the electron beam matched ␤ function to an TABLE I. Electron beam parameters and FEL performance for
average value of about 30 cm. The permanent magnet pieces the noncompressed 共case A兲 and compressed beam 共case B兲, respec-
were sorted to achieve field strength accuracy of better than tively.
0.4%. The undulator structure was constructed out of four
Case A Case B
individual sections, each 0.994-m long. During the magnetic
measurements performed at BNL 关21兴, the quadrupole mag- Electron beam energy 71.2 MeV 70.7 MeV
nets were aligned and additional shimming was introduced to Beam charge, Q 250 pC 140 pC
provide a desired central trajectory straightness 关22兴 of better Horizontal emittance, ␧ n 2.1⫾0.2 ␮ m 3.3⫾0.2 ␮ m
than 80 ␮m rms throughout each pair of the consecutive Peak current, I p 55 A 250 A
undulator sections. In order to align the magnetic axis of all rms energy spread, ⌬␥/␥ ⬍0.10% 0.17%
four individual sections to better than 20 ␮m throughout the FEL gain length, L g 29.7 cm 17.9 cm
4-m length of the device an interferometric alignment proce- SASE wavelength, ␭ r 831 nm 842 nm
dure was developed 关23兴 and implemented at the location of No. of temporal spikes, M 4 –5 1–2
the experiment. The undulator vacuum chamber was de- Total gain, G 7⫻104 2⫻108
signed to allow an independent support and control to each
undulator segment while in vacuum 关24兴; and a charge-
coupled-device 共CCD兲-based optical monitoring system was III. ELECTRON BEAM MEASUREMENTS
developed 关25兴 to trace the relative positions of the undulator
Initial measurements of the electron beam properties were
sections with a 10-␮m accuracy throughout the pumping
performed at the exit of the linac 共Table I兲. Emittance was
cycles and if in-vacuum corrections were required. determined with the quadrupole scanning technique, and op-
The undulator and vacuum chamber design included eight timized in the range of ␧ n ⬃1.9– 2.3 ␮ m. To determine the
diagnostic ports 50-cm apart, starting 25 cm into the undu- current profile, a calibrated linear energy chirping was ap-
lator. The applications of these ports were both to measure plied to the electron beam and the horizontal beam profile
SASE radiation properties along the undulator length, and to was measured around the first bend of the dispersive section
determine the electron beam position and envelope profile at of the beamline. For a sufficient amount of chirp, the hori-
three points throughout every betatron period. The undulator zontal distribution was entirely dominated by the dispersion
in-vacuum diagnostic probes were developed 关26兴 to inter- in the bend, and thus could be converted into the beam cur-
cept the beam path inside the undulator during the measure- rent profile. The measurement showed nearly flat top distri-
ments. To ensure clearance through 3.6-mm openings in the bution with a peak value of about 55 A.
undulator frame the probes were constructed only 2.2-mm To achieve the design goals, however, a much larger beam
wide, which is nonetheless many times both the electron and current was required. This was achieved with the develop-
radiation rms beam sizes. The active area of the probe—a ment of a bunch compression mechanism, utilizing second
double-sided silicon mirror—could be actuated in two posi- order effects in the dispersive section. Namely, the quadru-
tions: to reflect a FEL radiation into the optical diagnostic poles tune in the dispersive section was chosen such that the
system, or to generate the optical transition radiation 共OTR兲 transport coefficient T 566 was large and negative. As a result,
for the electron beam imaging system, respectively. The pol- the specific amount of the linac phase detuning resulted in
ishing of these miniature mirrors to the laser quality surface the two effects: 共1兲 the beam acquired a linear energy chirp-
finish presented a challenge, which motivated the use of sili- ing in the linac 共⌬␥/␥兲; and 共2兲 the initially small compres-
con. sion coefficient R 56⬇T 566(⌬p/p) increased to a significant
The initial design for electron beam diagnostic detectors value, as the beam centroid momentum was decreased by
considered single crystal YAG:Ce 共where YAG is yttrium ⌬p. The combined effect, given the proper choice of the
linac phase detuning and the beamline tune T 566 values, re-
aluminum garnet兲 scintillating screens. However, a diagnos-
sulted in a strong longitudinal bunch compression, and a
tic test performed at the ATF indicated an intensity-
much larger longitudinal current 关28兴.
dependent blooming of the beam image on the YAG screen
To measure the compression effect, a coherent transition
with the electron beam parameters similar to the ones ex- radiation 共CTR兲 diagnostics was implemented after the dis-
pected at VISA 关26兴. As an alternative, the OTR off the probe persive section of the beamline. The integrated intensity in
mirror surface, coupled with polarizers and filters to reject the coherent fraction of the transition radiation spectrum
the SASE signal, was utilized to image the electron beam. generated by the electron bunch has a strong dependence on
The relatively low intensity of the OTR, coupled with the the bunch length ␴ ␶ 关29兴. To measure the change of CTR
high optical noise environment inside the undulator, placed a intensity as a function of the linac phase detuning, the signal,
significant limitation on the dynamic range of the OTR- generated by a 45° mirror intersecting the beam path after
based beam profile monitors 关27兴. Since beam trajectory con- the dispersive section, was directed into a far-infrared bo-
trol was one of the most technically challenging aspects of lometer. The measured CTR intensity 共Fig. 2兲 showed a
the experiment, a very stable fiber coupled reference diode strong correlation with the linac rf phase, and thus allowed
laser was purchased and prealigned to the undulator mag- us to verify the compression process. In addition, an insert-
netic axis with 20 ␮m accuracy, to provide a fiducial mark able low-pass filter with a known frequency roll-off was used
for the electron beam centeroid trajectory measurements. for quantitative assessment of the high frequency CTR com-

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PROPERTIES OF THE ULTRASHORT GAIN LENGTH, . . . PHYSICAL REVIEW E 67, 066501 共2003兲

FIG. 2. Measured CTR signal intensity exhibits a sharp peak


within a narrow window 共⬃1.5°兲 of the linac RF phase.
FIG. 3. Comparison of the SASE radiation spectra measured
without 共A兲 and with 共B兲 compression. The spiky structure in case
ponent. Measurements with and without the filter provided a A indicates many longitudinal modes 共i.e., a longer bunch length兲.
benchmark for the numerical modeling of the system. As a
result it was found that at the optimized value of the linac rf length, and full transverse coherence was established early.
phase the bunch is compressed longitudinally by a factor of As a result, the statistical properties of the intensity distribu-
5, yielding a peak current of 250 A. tion were related entirely to the number of longitudinal
spikes in the SASE radiation. In the absence of compression
关Fig. 4共a兲兴, a ⌫-function fit indicated 4 –5 temporal modes,
IV. FEL MEASUREMENTS AND ANALYSIS
and with the compressed beam, a distribution inside the un-
Without the bunch compression, VISA lased at 830 nm, dulator 关Fig. 4共b兲兴 resembled a negative exponential, charac-
with a SASE pulse energy of 5 nJ measured at the undulator teristic of a single spike lasing 关both distributions are consis-
exit, corresponding to a gain length of about 30 cm 共Table I, tent with the spectra in Figs. 3共a兲 and 3共b兲, respectively兴. At
case A兲. Spectral measurements 关Fig. 共3a兲兴 showed a typical saturation, however, the SASE intensity distribution from the
spiky structure, indicating the superposition of many tempo- compressed beam has changed dramatically 关Fig. 4共c兲兴, since
ral modes 共spikes兲, as expected for a lasing core of the elec- it was no longer dominated by the shot noise fluctuations, but
tron beam about 500-␮m long 关27兴. With the compression in rather by the shot-to-shot fluctuations in the saturation
place 关Fig. 3共b兲兴, the spectrum was wider and lacked any length, which can be as large as few gain lengths for short
structure, suggesting the single temporal mode 关30兴, consis- bunches 关30兴.
tent with the shorter bunch length. With the compressed With the charge selection criterion described above, one
beam the SASE energy at the undulator exit increased by could compare data sets obtained at the different diagnostic
many orders of magnitude reaching up to 20 ␮J and showing ports along the undulator, while the system stayed at the
saturation when the optimized operating point was found. same operating point. As a result, the FEL gain evolution
Since the SASE process develops from a random shot along the undulator length was studied. The measured inten-
noise in the electron longitudinal distribution, it was impor- sity of SASE radiation had noticeably exceeded the level of
tant to analyze the statistical properties of the FEL process, a broadband spontaneous emission starting from the diagnos-
such as shot-averaged performance, and shot-to-shot fluctua- tic port 3 共1.25 m into the undulator兲. In the curve shown in
tions of the SASE intensity. However, that was not a trivial Fig. 5, the fit to the exponential part of the curve yielded a
task since the bunch compression factor, being a strong func- power gain length of 17.9 cm, corresponding to 3D FEL
tion of the linac rf phase, was changing on the fast time parameter ˜␳ ⬇0.0046, reduced from the 1D limit by a factor
scale, following the jitter in the rf system. As a result, the
measured SASE fluctuations were strongly dominated by the
linac rf noise. To overcome this problem, a collimator in the
dispersive section was used to monitor the linac phase evo-
lution by measuring the charge loss in the collimator. The
nonlasing tale of the dispersion-dominated beam was clipped
by the collimator, and the amount of clipping was monitored,
allowing us to select for data analysis only those shots that
were clipped by the same amount 关26兴.
The shot-to-shot distribution of the SASE process de-
pends on the number of independent lasing modes contribut-
ing to each shot and characterized with the ⌫-function distri-
bution 关31兴. In VISA the electron beam transverse size was
typically only 60–90-␮m rms, so that at the lasing wave- FIG. 4. SASE fluctuations 共a兲 without compression and at high
length the Raleigh range was much smaller than the gain gain measured 共b兲 inside the undulator and 共c兲 at the undulator exit.

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MUROKH et al. PHYSICAL REVIEW E 67, 066501 共2003兲

of (1⫹⌳)⬇1.75, mostly due to diffraction. Near the undu-


lator exit, the curve deviated from the exponential behavior,
indicating saturation, which was quite consistent with the
theoretical estimate of the saturation length 关6兴, L sat ⬇␭ u /˜␳
⫽3.9 m.
The measured bandwidth at saturation, (⌬ ␻ / ␻ ) f ⬇1.2%,
was also found in agreement with the value predicted from
theory, if one would add the contribution from the beam
energy spread term: ⌬ ␻ / ␻ ⬇2˜␳ 关 1⫹2(⌬ ␥ / ␥˜␳ ) 2 兴 . Finally,
the SASE power at saturation was estimated to be about 75
MW based on the SASE energy and bandwidth measure-
ments, which was consistent with the 3D scaling law P sat
⬃1.6P beam˜␳ /(1⫹⌳) 关32兴. The final state SASE gain G
⬅(d P/d ␻ ) f /(d P/d ␻ ) noise was evaluated using the treat-
ment given in 关33兴, using only the measured parameters:
FIG. 5. Measured SASE evolution along the undulator length

冉 冊 冉 冊
and numerical simulations 共gray lines are the rms boundaries of the
3 ␲ K 2 关 JJ 兴 2 I b m e c 2 ⌬ ␻ L̃ g set of GENESIS runs兲. The amplification curve yields power gain
G ⫺1 ⬇ .
4 1⫹K 2 /2 I A P f /k r c ␻ ␭
f u
lengths of 17.9 cm and saturates near the undulator exit.

With the undulator parameter K⫽1.26, and the average measured SASE gain curve was well within the standard
beam current over the spike length I b ⫽210 A, the gain value deviation of a set of GENESIS runs with randomly varying
at saturation was found to be G⬇2⫻108 . shot noise. In addition to a good agreement with measured
SASE gain evolution, the developed numerical model accu-
V. NUMERICAL MODEL OF THE EXPERIMENT rately reproduced spectral and angular properties of the ra-
diation. Figure 6 shows the hollow angular distribution of the
Since the details of the compression mechanism during SASE intensity measured at the exit of the VISA undulator,
the beam transport were critical for understanding the elec- together with the one generated from the far field GENESIS
tron beam properties inside the undulator, a full cathode-to- output. Such an unusual SASE angular profile was repeat-
undulator simulation of the experiment was needed to model edly observed in the experimental measurements. It was re-
the SASE results. Starting from the photoemission at the produced numerically, when the strongly asymmetric and en-
cathode, a UCLA version of PARMELA 关34兴 was used to ergy correlated horizontal phase space distribution in the
model acceleration and emittance compensation through the electron beam, originated in the bunch compression process,
gun and linac sections. The PARMELA results matched the was carried from the ELEGANT output into the FEL simula-
beam properties measured after the linac 共Table I兲. The code tions. Having this unusual result reproduced with GENESIS
ELEGANT 关35兴 was used to model the beam dynamics and the indicated a new level of insight into the dynamics of the
bunch longitudinal compression in the double-bend disper- electron beam and SASE FEL systems, obtained by the syn-
sive section, including the effects of coherent synchrotron thesis of copious diagnostic measurements and rigorous, de-
radiation 共CSR兲. The beam compression was studied as a tailed simulations.
function of linac rf phase detuning, and the ELEGANT output In conclusion, the VISA experiment presented an exten-
should be tested against the CTR data 共Fig. 2兲 to achieve a sive study of the dynamics of a high gain SASE FEL driven
good agreement between a model and the experimental data by a high brightness, longitudinally compressed electron
over a wide range of system parameters. One critical result beam in a strong focusing, compact undulator. A gain of 2
of the numerical simulations was understanding of the emit- ⫻108 and saturation were obtained, and the statistical prop-
tance growth mechanisms in the dispersive section. The EL- erties of the SASE signal at saturation were measured. SASE
EGANT CSR model showed that the slice horizontal emit- evolution as well as spectral and statistical properties of the
tance increase due to CSR was not significant, i.e., ⌬␧ CSR
n radiation were measured and found to be in good agreement
⬇0.3 ␮ m rad. However, when the beam energy offset was
set to model the maximum compression case, the noncom-
pensated dispersion term, ␩ ⬃5 cm, combined with the large
slice energy spread in the compressed beam, dominated the
emittance growth, bringing the effective horizontal slice
n ⬇3.5 ␮ m rad.
emittance inside the undulator up to ␧ eff
The 3D time-dependent code GENESIS 1.3 关36兴 was used
to model the radiation evolution inside the undulator. An
ELEGANT output file was converted into an input file for
GENESIS preserving all 6D properties of the electron beam
phase space 关37兴. The simulations of the FEL process are FIG. 6. Far field angular distribution of the SASE radiation 共a兲
shown in Fig. 5 together with the experimental data. The measured on the CCD camera and 共b兲 simulated with GENESIS.

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PROPERTIES OF THE ULTRASHORT GAIN LENGTH, . . . PHYSICAL REVIEW E 67, 066501 共2003兲

with the 3D FEL theory. To explain fine details in the per- mechanisms of the complex phenomena present in the ex-
formance of the system, it was necessary to investigate, both perimental system.
experimentally and through numerical modeling, the dynam-
ics of the electron beam throughout the entire injector- ACKNOWLEDGMENT
transport-FEL process. The developed start-to-end integrated
computational model showed an excellent agreement with This work was done under DOE Contract No. DE-FG03-
the measurements, and gave strong insights into the physical 92ER40693.

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